Nouvelle Prague

Daniel Antal, CFA

8/11/2019

Nouvelle Prague

⯈ Maintaining a Full-time Musician Career in Czechia
The situation of the ⯈ live music stream
The situation of the ⯈ recorded music stream & Composers’/Publishing Stream
⯈ Music Exports
⯈ Better Regulation & Granting
⯈ Conclusions. More info and feedback to the ⯈ author.
Use the ⯅ ⯆ to go deeper in a topic and ⯇ ⯈ keys to navigate between topics.

Maintaining a Full-time Musician Career in Czechia

It is more difficult to sustain a career in Czechia, because of a less concert opportunities, less royalties, and less grants are available.

Decision Tree: What is Needed in Czechia and Austria to Sustain a Full-Time Music Career

How Do Musicians Live?

Musicians generally have ⯆ more difficulties with paying their bills than the general population
Musicians have a ⯆ precarious income from 40-70 sources which is very difficult to manage
In Czechia most sources underperform and need to be developed.
Further slides below: ⯆ complex career paths ⯆ expectations for 2020 ⯆ life satisfaction levels

Subjective Income of Musicians & General Population

Musicians have more financial risk and uncertainty than the typical person in almost all countries.

Income Composition of Musicians

Digital sales, labels and publisher revenues are particularly week in Czechia. This is a sign of an underdeveloped market with little value added services.

The Three Income Stream Model

Complex Careers: Artist, Technical & Managerial Roles

Expectations

Life Satisfaction

Live Music Stream

The ⯆ value of concerts appears to be in line with the economic development and the ⯆ purchasing power of the audience in the country. Market research, innovation and hard work can only increase it.
The ⯆ audience sizes appears to be in line with the economic development of the country. Market research, innovation and hard work can only increase it.
The ⯆ audience demography is very similar to the CEE and only a long-term music education program can make changes over 5-10 years.
Further slides below: the scarce density of demand results in ⯆ high seasonality that increases financial risk and reduces profit. Next topic ⯈ Recordings’ Income Stream

Value of Concerts

Audience Sizes

Audience Purchasing Power

The recreational and cultural budget of Czech households, and their spending on event tickets is somewhere below the medium level of the EU.

Audience Demography

Audience Demography - Static

Seasonality of Concert Demand

Recorded Music Stream

Lower purchasing power than in West and North, coupled with ⯆ less willingness to pay at all, private copying is more prevalent (in fact, we measured rising euro values)
Weaker streaming markets, reliance on public performance royalties and PCR (“blank media levies”)
⯆ Royalty gap - by all benchmarks, royalty levels are lower in the CEE than in the North and West.

Willingness & Ability To Purchase

Low Royalty Levels

Streaming Markets: What Market Players Know

The Global Market Report covers total market revenues and dollar/dollar growth rates at last years’ (!) exchange rates
European stakeholders are affected by exchange rate changes
Subscription fee in the countries where they sell, mainly the domestic country; subscriber numbers in the countries where they sell, mainly again the domestic country
Repertoire competition in the countries where they sell, because that determines the monthly stream price in the local currency.
So how these are affecting an Austrian, Albanian, Czech or Slovenian producer, performer or composer?

Streaming Markets: CEEMID Indices

Music Exports

This year ⯆ Czech producers had a strong summer season on Spotify. This strength is critical to build larger audiences.
This strength does not translate into contesting foreign markets ⯆ beyond Slovakia. Only a few countries have exporting ability even within the European market ⯆ see further slide.
The next topic will be ⯈ Better Regulation and Granting.

Market Share at Home

This year Czech producers had a strong summer season on Spotify. This strength is critical to build larger audiences.

Market Share Abroad

Currently, Czechia has only one strong export market: Slovakia. Beyond the former Czechoslovakia there are no real success stories this year. Country of origin in squares, export market on colored dots and lines.

European Export Origins To European Charts

Better Regulation & Granting

The ⯆ DSM Directive is a once in a decade opportunity to get proper compensation for home copying and to reduce the value gap; this is the most urgent task.
The proposed Live Music Act could reduce the regulatory burden on concert and festival promoters, and create an umbrella for safety, noise, and other regulations.
The overhaul of the EU VAT system is a great opportunity to change the balance of tax burden from higher value-added services such as music to lower value-added ones such as car manufacturing.
Tackling double taxation is a key to more profitable foreign tours.

DSM Directive

One significant cause of the low royalty levels is the lack of adequate compensation for home copying and the value transfer to media platforms such as YouTube.

Example of Unlicensed Music Market Share (randomized based on real CEE results)

Development Program

All Czech music industry stakeholders are micro- or small enterprises, and they are lacking human resources, market research and innovation departments, competences. They can only become competitive in Europe if they join forces, like in more collaborative countries.
SoundCzech, CEEMID and state51/CI formed a ⯆ Research Consortium to build up a comprehensive research program. This Consortium is open for all Czech stakeholders.
We would like to facilitate building ⯆ joint strategic HR programs for the industry, particularly to help the building of lifelong learning among music professionals.
Our first development priority is the creation of a ⯆ broad music education programme.

Mapping the Industry

Joint Market Research and R&D

We would like to adopt models used in other CEE markets to critically review the value of royalties and whenever possible, to increase them in line with European benchmarks and jurisprudence.
We would like to train algorithms and provide advanced analytics for SoundCzech, labels, publisher and concert promoters about contestable, profitable foreign markets.
One aim of this research program is to develop strategic, effect and impact indicators to measure the development and make sure that the right direction is kept. This is also necessary for better grants.
By combining data assets, research capacities we hope to provide stakeholders with better prbetter advocacy tools.

Joint strategic HR functions

A higher level of professionalization is not possible without building collaborative strategic HR functions (such as skills measurement, skill development programs, programs for life-long learning.)
Our mapping of industry roles and hard data is a first step in this field, but stakeholders must organize themselves in the social dialogue and find suitable organization to support the career choices of young people and ensure continued skills growth.

Supporting a broad music education programme

Our development program puts music education (among primary and secondary school pupils), informal music learning (mainly among secondary school and college level students) and advocating among the general public at the top priority level.
Our research shows that only better music education, better participation in music and a better understanding of modern music can provide a sustainable basis for development.

The Author

Creating Better Statistics

CEEMID has been doing what Eurostat is doing, often years earlier: revisiting newly available open data sources, and creating new regional and national data products.

⎘ Zoom into the presentation online ⎘ read more: Creating better national cultural statistics with Eurobarometer datasets and ESSNet-Culture technical recommendations

Thanks to Experts and Innovators in Digital Music

Consolidated Independent supported the making of this report. CI is the market leader in managed services for the digital music industry, connecting the best independent music with the opportunities of the global market.

Special thanks to the data science team: Theo Gardner, Andy McFarland & Jerome Wynne for data preparation and advice.

Feedback & Questions: danielantal.eu

Contact: danielantal.eu - linkedin - github - dataverse

Topics: royalty valuation - private copying - grant design - policy advocacy - ceemid observatory